Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham

From 9 October 2026 – 10 January 2027, Nottingham Contemporary is proud to present the first UK institutional solo exhibition of the late British artist Sarah Cunningham (1993-2024, UK).

The exhibition marks a deeply meaningful homecoming: the return of the artist’s work to the city where she was born and raised.

Cunningham sought out the essential and the alive through her imaginary wildernesses and fluid forest-scapes, taking inspiration from the speculative landscapes of science fiction literature, art history, ecology and personal references.

Her paintings journey through multiple worlds; they are representative, not representational, of a landscape or environment. They are fictional, world-building tools to imagine new subjectivities and ways of living differently. Her influences ranged from literary figures and sci-fi writers Ursula K Le Guin and J G Ballard to the radical feminist occultist painter Ithell Colquhoun, British filmmaker Tacita Dean and Spanish artist Daniel Steegmann Mangrané.